Chengdu Female Teacher Sentenced to Three and Half Years in Prison after Being Held for Two Years

January 10, 2014 | By a Minghui correspondent from Sichuan Province, China

(Minghui.org) Ms. Liu Hui was recently sentenced to 3.5 years in prison. She never provided any information about her fellow practitioners to the police. To protest the persecution, she did not say a single word throughout the trial.

The day after she received the verdict, Ms. Liu herself submitted an appeal to the detention center. Her attorney said that the long-term detention by the local police department and the procuratorate had already violated the criminal law.

She was arrested at home by officers from the Jinniu District Domestic Security Division and the Fuqin Police Station on the night of December 14, 2011. She has been detained for two years in the Chengdu City Detention Center.

In fact, Ms. Liu has spent most of the past 14 years in detention. Her son, who was 4 years old when she was first detained, had to be raised by her parents. When he went to high school, he was raised by Ms. Liu’s older sister. The boy is now 18. It is hard to imagine how he grew up with his mother detained most of time.

Ms. Liu Hui

Previous Arrests and Incarcerations

Ms. Liu Hui, 40, was a teacher of Chinese at the Jinqinlu Elementary School in Chengdu City. She has been arrested more than ten times, detained eight times, taken to a forced labor camp once, and sentenced to prison once.

After her term in the Chuanxi Women’s Prison ended on October 11, 2006, she was directly taken to the Xinjin Brainwashing Center and held for more than three years.

After she returned home in 2010, she was not allowed to return to her job and not given a residential registration or identification card. She has been detained at home and in hotels for the past several years. The tortures once caused her renal failure and injuries to other organs. She was once detained in the Health Office of the Xinhua Community Center in Qingyang District, Chengdu City, On several occasions during her imprisonment, she was in critical condition.

Most Recent Arrest, Family Not Notified of Her Trial

At around 9 p.m. on December 14, 2011, more than 20 officers from the Jinniu District Domestic Security Division and the Fuqin Police Station arrested Ms. Liu at home. She was first taken to the Fuqin Police Station, and then to the Chengdu City Detention Center. The police ransacked her home, taking her laptop computer, external hard drive, more than 30 Falun Dafa books, and 200 DVDs of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and Shen Yun Performing Arts shows.

Her family was never notified of her whereabouts. They did not know of the arrest and detention until more than ten days later, and only after they asked around.

At the beginning of December 2013, a friend of Ms. Liu heard that her case had been accepted by the Jinniu District Court on November 29. Ms. Liu’s older sister called the Jinniu District Procuratorate and got confirmation. On December 10, without notifying her family, the court tried Ms. Liu, which gave the family no time to hire a lawyer.

Her older sister did not know about the scheduled trial until the night of December 9 and attended the hearing the next day. Ms. Liu Hui did not say a single word throughout the trial, nor was there any attorney defending her. The court sentenced her to 3.5 years in prison.

After Ms. Liu was sentenced, her family hired an attorney to represent her. She told her attorney that she received the verdict on December 12 and submitted an appeal on December 13 through the detention center. Ms. Liu also said that she was never against hiring a lawyer ever since she was arrested. However, she had no money to do so.

Every time she left and returned to her cell, she was strip-searched. The police searched her mouth, ears, hair, shoes, and even sanitary napkins during her menstrual period. She protested these humiliations by not hiring a lawyer.

Authorities Withhold Information and Privileges

During the two years of her detention, the authorities never notified Ms. Liu’s family. Her family did not know where she was detained after a three-month search. During this time, a person from the procuratorate called the family to complain that Ms. Liu refused to provide any information. But they would not reveal if the arrest was approved, if the family could hire an attorney, or if there was any written documentation.

The family visited many government departments asking why Ms. Liu was arrested but got no reply nor were they allowed to see her. Ms. Liu’s parents, who are in their 70s , could only deliver clothes and send money to her every month through the detention center. Pressured by the 610 Office, local police refused to renew Ms. Liu’s identification card, which was an excuse for the detention center to require Ms. Liu’s parents to deposit money to an internal account controlled by the police. Because the account was out of her control, Ms. Liu was constantly short of money to buy necessities.

According to Ms. Liu’s attorney, the two-year detention in the Chengdu City Detention Center by the police department and the procuratorate already violated existing criminal statutes.

The family has now hired an attorney to defend Ms. Liu in her appeal. After meeting Ms. Liu herself, the attorney went to the Jinniu District Court. Although he was not able to meet Judge Tian Yue who presided at her trial, the attorney submitted a complaint through the litigation service center of the court.